Leading British scientists must educate
the public on the importance of animal experimentation to medical research
in the face of increasing public support for anti-vivisection, says a committee
of the government's House of Lords.

Members of the Select Committee on
Animals in Scientific Procedures say scientists have been reluctant to
be openly pro-animal testing, and that a new generation of children are
growing up hearing only anti-testing views - storing up problems for the
future.

"There has been no effective engagement
by the science community to put forward the case for testing," said Professor
the Lord Smith of Clifton, chair of the committee, on 29 January.

There is a wide gap in opinion between
the UK's Royal Society - which maintains that experiments on animals are
vital to scientific progress - and anti-animal testing protesters, who
want to see a ban on all laboratory animals.

The issue came to a head last year
when the government spoke out publicly in defence of Huntingdon Life Sciences,
the British drug-testing company beleaguered by protests from animal rights
activists.

Change in attitudes

Smith said some scientists may have
been afraid to publicly speak on the need for animal testing following
attacks on Huntingdon property and staff.

Royal Society members giving evidence
to the committee proposed plans to liase with the department of education
to better inform schoolchildren about the need for some animal testing.

"There has definitely been a change
in the attitudes of young scientists. Undergraduates approaching animal
experimentation for the first time don't want to deal with dissections,"
Patrick Bateson, vice-president of the Royal Society told the committee.

This restricts the vital animal research
that can be conducted in the UK, he says.

Developing alternatives

Bateson announced on Tuesday that
the Royal Society is considering setting up an institution devoted to investigating
and developing alternatives to animal testing - although he stressed that
in many cases there are no alternatives.

Such an institution would be funded
by research councils, charities and would be the first of its kind in Europe.
A similar institution in the US - the John Hopkins Center for Alternatives
to Animal Testing - was set up 20 years ago and has proved very successful,
he said.

The committee is expected to conclude
its hearings by June 2002. The government then has two months to respond
to its recommendations.